Is skipping meals the key to weight loss? Nutrition myths busted, part 9

One of the main reasons I started this blog was to bust nutrition myths, and so I thought it was time for another post. There are so many myths that are always circulating, and I want to give you the facts so you can make informed choices about what you eat.

The myths I’m going to cover are:

Skipping meals helps you lose weight

It doesn’t matter what you eat, as long as it’s low calorie

Eating spicy foods helps you lose weight quickly

Let’s get right in…

Skipping meals helps you lose weight: 

Weight loss occurs when you use up more calories than you consume.  So, the idea behind this myth makes sense, in that, if you don’t eat all your meals, you’ll be having less calories and so lose weight. However, skipping meals isn’t guaranteed to help you lose weight, as it depends on what else you eat during the day. It would also be hard to lose continue to weight when you skip meals, as your body will do things to counteract the lack of energy.

To address my first point, yes, if you skip breakfast and then eat lunch and dinner as normal, you’ll lose weight. But if you skip breakfast and then have a larger lunch and/or dinner to compensate, then you’ll unlikely see much difference. Research has shown that when you skip a meal, you tend to eat more at your next one. Research also shows that restricting and not eating enough can lead to binge eating. So, by limiting what you’re eating and skipping meals, it could make you think about food more and you end up eating more.

The second part of this, is that your body is very clever, and it will work to counteract attempts to lose weight. It does this by lowering your metabolic rate – which means you’ll use less energy for all your bodily reactions. It also will increase your appetite, and levels of the hunger hormone ghrelin to make you eat more. It does this regardless of your weight loss method, but skipping meals is a drastic one as it’s a large calorie loss.

I’ve got a blog post here about how to lose weight without starving yourself as you don’t have to skip meals in order to have weight loss.

It doesn’t matter what you eat, as long as it’s low calorie: 

If we’re going to really simplify weight loss, then we can reduce it ‘calories in vs calories out’. Being in a calorie deficit is the only way to lose weight. But there’s a different between losing weight and losing weight in a healthy way. It’s still important to nourish your body and eat a range of nutrients while also limiting your calories.

If you’re focused purely on the numbers, then you could end up eating less healthy foods, or eating more than you would normally just because something is sold as low calorie.

One example I like to use is Halo Top ice cream. These are sold as a healthy low calorie ice cream. They proudly display the calories per tub on the front of the packaging. Their sea salt caramel is 320 calories per tub (which is 473ml). Compare this to Tesco’s finest own brand of salted caramel ice cream at 766 calories per tub, there’s a clear difference. However, eating a whole tub of ice cream isn’t eating behaviour I would encourage, as less nutritious foods like ice cream are better in moderation, regardless of the calorie amount.

The Halo Top being lower in calories also doesn’t mean you should eat more of it. It’s still an ultra-processed food that contains a lot of sugar. It’s something to be eaten occasionally. 

It can be helpful to consider the nutrient balance of foods when looking to cut calories. A balanced meal/snack contains a mix of all the nutrients and should keep you satisfied, so aiming for this can be more useful than just looking at the numbers. I've got a blog post on calorie counting here.

Eating spicy foods help you lose weight quickly: 

Another myth I always see floating around is that eating spicy foods like cayenne pepper will burn fat and lead to fast weight loss. It apparently does this by speeding up our metabolisms and making us burn calories faster. Now, normally I’m not one to endorse rapid weight loss as it’s unsustainable, but for the sake of this point, I’ll indulge.  

Capsaicin is the active component of chillis and peppers and this is what gives them their spicy kick. It’s capsaicin that people think will help with weight loss by speeding up our metabolisms and making us eat less.

Capsaicin is a very biologically active compound within in our bodies. There’s evidence to suggest that it can increase our metabolic rate and the breakdown of fats within the body. This can contribute to weight loss, but it’s not clear how much weight loss it would lead to. The effect on our metabolism was found when using large doses of capsaicin and so would mean taking capsaicin tablets as opposed to eating spicy foods.

There is some research that shows people that ate a concentrated form of capsaicin before a meal then consumed 74 calories less than others. Obviously eating less calories leads to weight loss, but an average 74 calories less per meal isn’t exactly the weight loss miracle you may have been expecting. If you ate 74 calories less than normal for your 3 meals a day, it would take just over two weeks to lose a pound (0.45kg) of body weight.

Relying on chillies to lose weight isn’t a feasible weight loss method and will likely take a lot longer than you expect. Making sustainable lifestlye changes would be a better option, but I know it’s easier said than done.

That’s it for the myths I’m busting today. There’s no quick fix to weight loss but there’s always new methods cropping up, so I’ll continue to explore the science behind them.

Key points:

• Skipping meals isn’t guaranteed to lead to weight loss as you may compensate at later meals.
• Low calorie foods shouldn’t be overeaten just because they’re low calorie. It’s important to aim for more nutritious food rather than the calorie number.
• Spicy foods can slightly increase your metabolism and make you eat less, but it’s a small amount in the grand scheme of weight loss.

I hope you enjoyed this blog post. Let me know if there’s any other myths you want busted!

Bye for now 👋

References:

https://www.tesco.com/groceries/en-GB/products/299443317 Halo top ice cream

https://www.tesco.com/groceries/en-GB/products/303007691 Tesco own brand ice cream

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32398192/ Skipping meals

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/27292940/ Skipping meals

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4766925/ Body counteracts weight loss

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/26841705/ Dietary restriction and ED

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/24246368/ Capsaicin and weight loss

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/17284861/ Capsaicin and weight loss